


In the After

by Howland



Category: Norse Mythology
Genre: Gen, Post-Ragnarok, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2010-02-28
Updated: 2010-03-08
Packaged: 2017-10-07 15:15:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/66386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Howland/pseuds/Howland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The members of the Norse pantheon aren't gods anymore, but nor are they quite human.  In modern day Minnesota, Loki (now a librarian) and Baldur (who's been forced to move in with his parents) start to redefine a friendship that everyone thought was destroyed long ago.</p><p>(May eventually become slash.  I haven't decided yet.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tentative

The reflection off the wine glass wavers as he turns it in his fingers, almost like the haze seen over distant asphalt on a hot day in the city.  They haven’t had dinner like this for awhile and it might be nice but neither of them is sure yet.

One of them knows a guy who knows a guy and they actually got a pretty nice table.  They can still hear the kitchen bustle, but they are secluded next to a back window.  Bobs of yellow and red light reflect like faerie lights off the wet sidewalk outside, making up for the lack of a moon. 

The bones were cleared by the waiter not a minute ago, and all that was left was a coffee and a wine glass, both half empty and not looking to be refilled.   They continue to make small talk, but appropriate topics are running thin and one of them is playing with the stem of his glass, big blunt fingers surprisingly gentle.  The other stares as he drinks from his own cup.  

“What I wouldn’t give for _good_ mead.”  The first grumbles and the second spares him a laugh, running a fine pale finger over his rim of porcelain.  It’s a skilled play, a tiny tear in this veneer that can now be picked and worried until it opens like a wound and spills out what wants to be said.

  There was a time when they weren’t shy like this.  One would be loud and abrasive and the other would banter back, quick and sharp but not unkind.  They and their wives had been friends then and there’d been none of this sort of thing.  Both wondered if they could ever go back, hiding the question behind another swallow of coffee, gulp of wine.  

“Sooo.”  the smaller of them draws the syllable out until it is thin as a wire, drawn taught between them.

The other only chuckles.  “So.”  He pauses before pushing on.  “How’s your heart?”

Suddenly the pale one’s choking on a mouthful of coffee, looking for a napkin.  “Damn it Loki!” he manages to grunt around coughs.

Loki passes him his own napkin a glint of his old self shining through his eye.  “Well, we have been beating around the bush all night.”

“My heart’s fine damn it.  Look, I’ve gotten coffee on my sleeve, thanks.  Nice to see you’re still a bastard after all these years.”  Wiping his lips he tosses the napkin on the table where it casts strange shadows against the burgundy tablecloth.

The smile is still there when Loki reaches to pick up the cloth, smoothing out it in front of him on the table.  “You wouldn’t recognize me otherwise.”

The other grumbles and rubs his eyes.  “No, I suppose not.”

Silence stumbles in again as Loki starts to fold the napkin.  The other reaches across the table and steals his wine glass and drinks the rest of the alcohol in a single draught.  

The grin on Loki’s face is impish as he watches.  “Your brother could’ve used skill like that back in the day.  Remember that time with the giants?”

“Yes, I remember.  You idiots got played for a couple of fools.”  But he’s grinning too despite the insult, his lips pressed tight together and the corners of his mouth upturned.  

A waiter comes by and asks if they’d like anything else or just the check and they  accidentally talk over each other in their effort to reply.  

“Just the bill, friend.”  Loki says on a second try and the young man nods and leaves them be.  A car drives by and briefly turns their faces white then red as it comes and goes. 

Loki knows time is running short, maybe two minutes until the man comes back with the check and he will pay, because it is the least he can do, and then they will go their separate ways.  Who knows how long it will be until they see each other again.  They both know that this world too must end.

“I’m sorry Baldur.”  

Baldur looks up from where he’d once again been staring at Loki’s hands as they worked at the napkin.  The bigger man’s mouth looks like a painful wound cut sideways in his face, angry and red.  It’s frightening to see the headstrong son of a bitch so unsure.   Although a part of him wants to act out of character and damn the man for past misdeeds, he can’t.  

“I know.”  

This world too must end, and they wonder what part they will play in it this time.  Maybe, if they’re lucky, neither of them will have to die.

Laughing to himself even though it isn’t funny, Baldur reaches for the check at the same time Loki does, and Loki is surprised to see Baldur’s hand land lightly atop his own.

This time his smile is huge and his laugh is booming.  “Come on Bee, I think paying for dinner is the least I can do.”

Baldur shakes his head, a sigh of laughter brushing past his own lips.  “My father had you chained to a rock and tortured for centuries.  I think you’ve paid enough.”

For a moment Loki looks thoughtful but Baldur knows it is a ruse even before the man reaches for his wallet.  “If you insist, you can pay for your own dinner but I’m not gonna have this tacked on to my debt.”

The waiter comes a minute later and they tell him to keep the change without sparing him a glance.  Folded from the napkin  is a howling wolf, balanced on the edge of their table, looking on as they talk into the night.


	2. Peace Offering

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant for this to stop as a one shot at first, but my fingers were itching to continue it. May eventually become more slashy, or it may not. I'm letting it take me where it will.

Sometime later when the ground is dry and the air a bit warmer their paths converge again.  Light from the sun is muted by a fine layer of cloud, but the city keeps busy.  Loki’s on the edge of it all, a block from the river and making his way down the aisles of a plant nursery.

He runs his fingers over the edge of the velvet box in his coat pocket, smiling as he thinks about the ring.  It isn’t rich, it’s only enameled silver, but the two interwoven bands of glossy green mistletoe had been too much to resist when he’d seen them beneath the counter.  He’s thought about how to present it for awhile and today feels right.  He hasn’t checked to see if his friend was working, but he’s counting on fate to make things happen.

“You’re such a bastard.”  Baldur sighs when Loki finds him amongst a stand of broad-leaved saplings and hands over the gift.

“Yes.”  He agrees.  He asks him to coffee on the Monday after next and the pale one only pauses for a moment before he accepts.

They meet up at a bistro in an area of town named after one of the Saint Anthony’s and again they’re both surprised by how nicely things work out.  The food isn’t what they’d call traditional but it’s got a fragment of familiarity to it and that’s more than enough.

“Not a mead hall Loki?  I’m surprised.”  

Loki grins around the rim of his mug.  “Haven’t found one yet.”

“Maybe you should start one.”  Baldur counters, taking a bite of beef pastry.  

“Maybe I should.”

“How’d you find the ring?”

“Antique store.”

“What?  Really?”

Loki laughs mildly and nods.  He tells Baldur of what his kids call his ‘old man habits,’ about how he likes to sift through broken things in dusty shop corners when he’s not working.  Baldur looks thoughtful.

“How’d you find me?”

Loki’s face takes on a familiar look of impishness.  “I’m a librarian now Bee, I know all.”

Baldur rolls his eyes and keeps eating.

Some time later when Loki gets a call from Sigyn he looks as apologetic as he can and says he’ll find Baldur later, maybe they should do this again sometime.  Baldur tells himself he isn’t dissapointed.

As fate would have it though, sometime is the next day.  Loki comes by with the look of a man who wants to tell a story and Baldur leaves work early.

The ground is dry enough that they sit in the grass between two softball fields, in a park across the street from the nursery.  Baldur unties his apron and wipes his hands on the clean underside.  He’ll wash it when he gets home.

He already knows this has something to do with the call, which means it has something to do with his children.  Sigyn has not been friendly as of late, but she still finds Loki necessary on occasion.  

“The humane society.”  Loki begins, a breath away from laughing.  “I’d known Narfi had started spending more time with Fenrir, which is good for the two of them, I always wanted the lot of ‘em to be closer, but Fenrir’s a bit more, ah, high-spirited than Narfi.  Sigyn finds him to be a, ah, a bad influence.  I had to go buy them both out of the Como pound.  No, I’m serious!  A poster went up outside Sigyn’s office, you know, one of those ‘Will you give me a home?’ posters where the animals look pathetic?  And, seriously, there was Narfi looking damnably so.  I’m lucky I got there before anyone else did or else I would have had to track down the unlucky bastards who’d adopted him and hope he hadn’t given himself away.”

He’s laughing now, and so is Baldur.  “I tried to make them cautious shape-shifters, but I suppose they still have to learn their own lesson.  Sigyn’s called me six times but I don’t have the heart to answer.  I couldn’t hold a serious conversation now if I tried.”

Baldur understands and lays back on the grass smiling more than he has in many days.  There are clouds today but not enough to block the sun, and it’s warm and familiar where it touches his face.

“This is nice.”  he mutters, stretching his arms above his head, face turned to the side so his cheek presses against the earth.

Loki’s laughs die down slowly and his smile lingers and lingers as Baldur’s does.  It _is_ nice.  At length however, Loki breaks the quiet, asking Baldur about his own wife and son and the Pale man’s smile fades slightly.  

“They’re alright.  We all manage don’t we?”  He doesn’t mean to elaborate but somehow Nanna’s problems come pouring out of his mouth like water; mood swings, bouts of devotion and rejection and confliction, burns that never healed.  In all these things, Forseti stands by his mother and while that makes Baldur proud, it also makes him feel incredibly alone.  

“I moved out almost a year ago, Loki.”  He trails off, suddenly tired.  Sitting up he sighs and drops his head down so his chin rests against his chest. 

Loki is startled.  “Your brother said nothing about that when I spoke with him.”

Baldur shakes his head, combing his fingers through the grass absently.  “Of course Thor didn’t.  No one knows how to talk about _us_, Loki.  Not between themselves and especially not around us.”

“How odd.”  Loki mutters.  Leaning back on his elbows, he watches the cars moving down the street.  West Seventh is sluggish during rush hour.  “Where are you living now?”

“With my parents.”  He says this with a note of exasperation in his voice and it makes Loki grin.  

“Over on River Road?  That’s a nice place.”

Baldur makes a face and decapitates a single blade of grass, rolling the green tip between his thumb and forefinger.  “It’s ostentatious... and big.  Too big for my tastes, but at least they have room for me.  Actually it’s not unlike the old days when we all lived at Valhalla, only not.  I’ve tried finding an apartment but this job doesn’t pay as much as I’d like and rent is atrocious right now.”

For a moment Loki thinks to reach out and touch Baldur’s shoulder but he does not.  Instead he nods even though Baldur can’t see and lays back to stare at the sky.  

An hour later families pull up in ones and twos bringing their daughters to that evening’s little league game.  Loki tries to imagine bringing _his_ daughter to play softball and has to stifle a laugh at the thought.  Hel would not have enjoyed herself.

When he speaks he does so without thinking, reckless in a way that’s familiar.  “You could move in with me if you like.”

Neither of them breathes.  There’s a loud metallic sound as the girls start batting warm ups and they watch as a neon yellow softball slams into the dirt before rebounding towards a player in left field.  The girl laughs when she catches it, distracted by her conversation with the player next to her.  Cradled in her glove, the ball is forgotten until the coach gives a shout and she shrugs and grins sheepishly.  Back on task, she throws so hard it hit’s the coach’s glove with a crack loud as a gunshot.  Baldur swallows, his throat dry.

“What do you charge?”  The words are weak but they’re enough.  Loki smiles.

“We’ll work it out later.”  

They watch the girls play for awhile until the sun sets and the first bugs of the season start to descend.  Baldur will move in next Saturday they decide.  Loki will come by in the morning to help him pack.  Odin and Freya will not be happy, but it could be worse.  

Cheers and shouts from parents sitting in lawn chairs beneath newly leafed trees follow them back across the street to their cars.  The flowers from the nursery make the air smell bright and sweet and it causes them both smile as they drag out their keys and say goodbye, until the next time.  It’s an hour home through rush hour but Loki is relaxed.  He’s not smiling but his eyes are soft, and his fingers drum gently against the steering wheel in tune with strains of Led Zeppelin peeling from the radio.  He will call Sigyn later but for now, he simply savors the sunset over the St. Paul skyline.


End file.
